Two Stanleys in One Day?!?

So.

There was a (shit)(rainstorm) yesterday. And there was Game 5 of the NHL Playoffs. AND THE KINGS WON THE STANLEY CUP!!! 

Thus, this morning was dedicated to slowly sipping coffee and reading funny hockey commentaries. And a bit of catching up on the World Cup, too. 

HELLO, BOYS!
Source.

I like hockey a lot. Not a total diehard fan, but fan enough to enjoy watching a game from time to time. I know, I know, Rangers are an OK team (I guess), they have a mighty fine-looking goalie and they ARE my town's team. But blood is thicker than water and LA Kings have Anže on their roster, so there you have it - me is LA supporter smack in the middle of #rangerstown. 

Anže is a big hero back home and he brought the Stanley Cup to Slovenia in 2012, which was all kinds of awesome. And he's bringing it home again this summer. AND he looks way better when he does not shave.  As do a lot of men.

Anže being adorable again.
Source.

In case you are craving more bearded Kings, Heather of the Fug Girls compiled a lovely gallery. The title of the post says it all: Well Played, Jubilant, Oft-Toothless Men in Beards: The Los Angeles Kngs Win the Stanley Cup. You are welcome. 

Why so sad, "king" Henrik?
Your team lost, but at least you are still very pretty.
Source.

On another note, today is a lovely Saturday. The nasty storm left behind crisp air, no humidity and streets without dust. Which can only mean one thing: take Stanley (not the cup, the bike) out for a spin. After the beard and coffee and that-other-Stanley overdose, of course.

First stop was Central Park (obviously), where I, by some miraculous stroke of good luck, managed to find a not-too-crowded spot in the otherwise-extremely-crowded Park to sit down, crack open my book, and read for a while. I boycotted the iPOD for once and listened to the birds instead. 

Chilling in Central Park with a book.

My next stop was the UWS Whole Foods. I do not shop there often, as I find the whole experience a tad pretentious and many of the things that I ordinarily buy are severely overpriced there compared to my local grocery store. But they do have virgin coconut oil that my local grocery store does not stock AND that does not cost an eye. Also, peonies.

Hipster Stan!!!

I came home late in the afternoon, just in time for some early dinner. Colorful veggie stir fry, roasted on my new coconut oil. Made the whole freaking house smell of coconut instead of onion and broccoli. 1:0 for coconut oil, I guess.

Having a Blair Waldorf  moment. 

Veggie stir fry. Made with coconut oil.
Joyful!

Now it's 9 pm and it's still light outside. Adore!!!

I'll probably go for a quick run now, since I have been a lazy ass for the past few weeks. 

And tomorrow is Sunday brunch-day!

Gotta love weekends. 

Jules

The Amazing Sunday

Perfect Sunday alert!

Oh, yes. After a wild, gin-infused Saturday night (ohmyiactuallywentouttoparty), sleeping in until 10-ish felt amazing. So did waking up with a clear head and a calm stomach. And so did having coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches in bed while binge watching three episodes of Scandal.

But enough is enough and three episodes were enough. Time to slap on some sunscreen and leave the house. And leave Manhattan, too. A bumpy ride on the 4 train and another one on the 2 train took me to Brooklyn Botanical Garden where the cherry blossoms are still blooming amazing. 

I headed directly for the cherry esplanade, found a spot under a tree, spread my blanked, took off my shoes and lay down. 

A minute and a half later (yes, those pink-clad branches against the blue sky demanded a bit of attention) I switched temptation of by activating my phone's airplane mode and cracked open a book. 

 

I zoned out for a few hours. Reading and sipping a chilled ginger lemonade. The only thing that disturbed my bubble was a freaking bird that parked its butt on a branch right above my head. 

Yes, it decided to take a #2. Which landed two inches away from my head. Could've been worse, I guess.

Yeah, for a person who zoned out for 3.5 hours, I took an astonishing amount of pictures. But dudes, look at all the pretty pink fluffy blooms!!!

Since I made the trip to Brooklyn and paid for the ticket, it occurred to me that there's more to the Garden than just the cherries. So, after 3.5 hours of pure bliss (minus the freaking pooping bird), I burst my bubble, folded up the blanket, removed some fallen blooms from my shoes (and my hair, and my butt) and left my slice of heaven. The stroll through the park's grounds was delightful, although it was quite crowded. But it was not half bad. Actually, the rest of the garden was just as beautiful as the freaking cherries.  

Next up was a mediocre ice cream (boooooo), redeemed by some very decent iced coffee. 

Brooklyn, I really do like you. 

SOTD: The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You. 

Because it sounds just like Prospect Heights.

Before I knew it, it was 6 pm and time to make it back to Manhattan. Destination: the IMAX theater at Lincoln Center. Movie: The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Snack: salted caramel popcorn. AMAZING indeed. One of the cooler superhero movies around. Of course, nobody puts Iron Man in the corner, but the rebooted Spidey comes a very close second. Woo-hoo!

Happy Monday or whatever.

Jules

The Toronto Diaries, part 1

Wednesday, April 9th 2014

I dragged my butt down to the lab at 8.15 in the morning. Say whaaaaaaaaaaat? 

Well, a postdoc's got to do what a postdoc's got to do. In my case, it was tissue culture. Wouldn't want the vicious killer cancer cells I so lovingly grow to starve while mommy goes out in the world, non?  

It was a quick and painless 1/3 day at the lab and then off to LaGuardia to catch my flight. All went smoothly and before I knew it, we touched down in sunny Toronto. Oh yes, I kid you not, the North Pole outdid itself weather-wise. 

First impressions were lovely. Canadian dollars look adorable, so do tall blonde immigration officers with hipster glasses and crooked smiles. Free wi-fi at the airport didn't hurt either. 

One other adorable thing I couldn't help but notice was the fact that people here read actual books on the subway. On my first few rides I swear I saw more people reading books than playing with their phones. A bit retro, but undeniably cool. 

My first activity in the city was a leisurely walk down cool Bloor street and further down to Chinatown, where a fantastic place called AGO, aka The Art Gallery of Ontario, is located. 

AGO architeture.
Cool indeed. 

             

I went in and spent a few hours wandering the galleries. It was really beautiful. And the building itself pretty marvelously matches the beauty of the collection stored inside, courtesy of one Frank Gehry. 

AGO & CN & clear blue skies.
Just a wee sample of Toronto's finest.

Before I knew it, it was time to go meet my CS host, which turned out to be tougher than originally planned thanks to my incredible abilities of typing the wrong address into Google Maps and thus ending up half way up to the Northern Territory. The error was rectified thanks to two very nice bus drivers and, about two hours later than planned, I found my way to a shower, a fresh shirt and the obligatory get-to-know-you beers. All was well. 

Incredibly well, actually. 

A message for Holden Caulfield

Last Monday, when we got back from Miami, a freezing and foggy New York welcomed us. On Tuesday, it snowed for most of the day, but the snow, fortunately, didn't really stick on the streets. The Park, well, was another story. 

Central Park last Wednesday, a mere day
after the first real snow of the season

And it's been snowing all freaking day this past Saturday. All. Fucking. Day. This time around, the white frozen water, to my sheer annoyance, stuck. Not to mention that by evening, snow turned into frozen rain, so the freshly deposited white fluffiness, that by the way looked kind of cute from the safety of my blanket-wrapped-hot-cocoa-cup-in-hand vantage point, suddenly turned into a soggy icy slippery mess. Nice.

I have a love-hate relationship with winter. Having grown up on the Mediterranean coast in a sub-mediterranean climate, snow days were few and far in between. Instead, our winters were either foggy and soggy or batshit crazy cold thanks to the burja, but that's another story.

Although I have remarkable thermoregulation,  I hate being cold. And I hate cold wet stuff falling from the sky. Sure, snow is awesome on the ski slopes up in the mountains, and yes, forests freshly dusted with snowflakes look pretty, but come on, snow is cold, slippery, impractical, and entertains the habit of turning into ice on the sidewalks and makes you fall on your butt. Not cool.

SOTD: Florence and The Machine - Landscape. 

This is my first winter in New York (here's to many MANY more!) and I am mentally prepared to plenty of sore butt instances and frost-bitten fingers. I actually like the sunny days, although they come at a price (= frostbitten fingers). During those freezing days, I like to take a longer lunch and go for a stroll in the park while the sun is still up in the sky. And guess what, every single time I do that, my mind drifts to one particular character from one particular book. Yup, Holden from The Catcher in the Rye. 

The Angel of the Waters and a frozen Lake in the background.
What's not to love?
Oh, yeah, I know, having your toes amputated 'cause they froze!

And in particular, his endless yammering about the ducks in the pond in Central Park, is looping in my brain during those walks. He talks about the ducks that usually hang out at the Pond down at the southern edge of the park, but kind of get chased away once the water freezes over. And poor angsty Holden wonders where they might go. 

The Lake and Bow bridge this morning.

Well, Holden, buddy, I found them. They move just a tad north to the Lake. Mystery solved, Holden. 

Ducky hangout in a non-frozen pocket of the Lake.

Dear Holden. Here are your ducks. Next time,
just walk from one body of water to the next, dude.

All of a sudden, I have this craving for re-opening The Catcher in The Rye. It's been about 8 years since I last read it...

Happy Salinger-ing,

Jules

p.s. These pics were taken on this particular Monday morning on my way to the American Museum of Natural History. After a 60+ work week that ended yesterday around 11 pm, I decided to play hooky for the morning and go check out the whales exhibit. It was amazing. Beautiful. Fun. And heartbreaking. Did you know that the blue whale's aorta is actually big enough for a toddler to crawl in it relatively comfortably. And did you know that sperm whales got their name because early whalers thought the white slimy stuff in their (ginormous) noses was sperm. Turns out, it's semiliquid that helps them do that sonar thing they do to detect prey. Mind? Blown! More than just twice!

24 hours of peace and quiet

Two very lovely ladies were visiting the past few weeks and we had a blast. Huh, having a social life is kind of fabulous, my dears. I seem to have forgotten that...

But they left on Friday and there was someone else flying in yesterday. Which is a whole other level of awesomeness. But which also means that I had a whole one day to enjoy the blissful luxury of having my home all for myself. 

View from my morning bike ride

I had tons of TV shows to catch up on, a few books to open after a long time and tea to drink, a face to scrub and pamper, and a box of dark chocolate covered slated caramels to finish off, all in the company of the weirdest great music from my iTunes library. And a brand new scented candle.

Sweet sweet doing nothing AKA calm before the storm.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go tend to my social life. 

Cheers,

Jules

A book haul

I might have mentioned before that I am sort of a book hoarder. I tried resisting for the longest time, but then The Strand happened and that used book fair in that small Connecticut town on that trip , and yes, I stopped resisting.

And bought all of those:

Book haul

I can't wait to spend weekends with my dear friends: the always funny Julian Barnes, abrasive Jonathan Franzen and weirdo David Foster Wallace.

                         

So now, my bookshelf finally looks something like this:

The collection is still tiny compared to the one I used to own in my previous life, but I'm trying to be practical here.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read me some Steinbeck on the kindle. 

Jules

Marry me, Julian Barnes! Or something.

I'm currently reading three or four books, see. 

I simply do not possess the resilience to have just one book open and read it in one go. I guess I am a book glutton. Of course, that means that I am capable of "reading" a book for six months. Maybe because that particular one is my "lunchtime" book, or my current "serious" read, or my "trashy secret guilty pleasure of the moment that can only be consumed in absolute privacy". Meh... 

Maybe I just suck at being consistent.

Well, by far my favourite "unwind with a glass of pinot in the evening" of the bunch is Pulse, Julian Barnes' collection of short stories.

Lovely cover. And this book is made of paper. And ink.
And has pages and the lovely book smell!
Kindle is a little jealous, I think.

And here's the reason why - ok, one of MANY reasons:  

----

"The chocolates?"

"No, the drawings."

"I used to love a cigar. It didn't have to be a whole one. Half would do."

"They gave you different cancers, didn't they?"

"What did?"

"Cigarettes, pipes, cigars. Didn't pipes give you lip cancer?"

"What did cigars give you?"

"Oh, the poshest kind."

"What's a posh cancer? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"

"Bum cancer's got to be the bottom of the pile."

J. Barnes, Pulse - At Phil and Joanna's 1

----

That's a dinner conversation a group of friends are having during dinner. I'm still chuckling. A few minutes ago, I was laughing hard. 

I love you, Barnes.

Jules